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I'm pretty sure Jo said very recently that Bellatrix and Rodolphus had an arranged marriage.

Actually, her exact words may have been that Bellatrix didn't love Rodolphus, that she made a respectable pureblood marriage because that's what was expected of her, but Bellatrix's true devotion was to the Dark Lord.

Right, I'll toss my two cents in the general direction of this thread.

Firstly, and I know this has already been discussed at length by a great many people, but I absolutely hate the idea of marriage being an unbreakable vow. If marriage is to be about loving the other person, then to use a ceremony which suggests that if you leave the other you will die is the least romantic thing in the world. Things drift apart between the two of you, but you stay together to preserve your own life? If that is a declaration of love, then I missed a meeting somewhere along the lines. From that note alone, combined with my own personal moral outlook of course, I think wizarding divorces are possible. It might also be said that the very people who would agree to such terms are the pure-blood villains who have arranged marriages (ie, let's face it, Bellatrix), who are so often accused of lacking love entirely. Furthermore, Dean's father and Tom Riddle both had very good reasons for leaving their marriage. Very honourable reasons in Dean snr's case, and certainly less lamentable reasons in Tom Riddles.

Originally Posted by Cmwinters

This gets back on the whole idea that Jo is creating an idyllic world wherein your first love is your soulmate and you are together for life, no matter how woefully unrealistic that is.

Indeed, and also her ability to skirt around anything that would be a remotely controversial issue (these are children's books of course, so maybe there is something to be said for that.). J.K. Rowling's world does not account for divorce, because the characters within it are either clear cut villains or clear cut heroes (Even Snape, in my opinion). Since divorce can be cast in either light depending upon the circumstances (within the media, which is crucial to this paragraph's point), J.K. Rowling chooses not to deal with it, and sticks to her simple version of racism for any sort of moral outlook (which I have criticised in the past). If J.K. Rowling were to use divorce within her books, then she would either have to choose between allowing the heroes to do so, thereby glorfying it, or have the villains do so, thereby condemning it.

The beauty of fanfiction is that it allows us to explore issues that would not be explored within the books. We are allowed to discuss divorce within the wider wizarding world, without worrying how the newspapers/whatever fundamentalist christian interprets each incident as meaning. With that said, I think divorce can occur in the wizarding world